Shoe Horn Sonta Visual Analysis

John Misto, the composer of the play ‘The Shoe-Horn Sonta’ cleverly weaves various distinctly visual techniques to illuminate the dramatic ideas, shared by two friends, Sheila and Bridie. Through the use of engaging dialogue, characterisation, symbols, stage directions, sound, and dramatic tension Misto explores, the key ideas of horrors of war, and heroism and creates distinctly visual images within the minds of the audience.

An idea/theme which Misto cleverly illuminates through the use of distinctively visual techniques is that of the horrors of war. In one scene, where the women have sewn a pin into a guards loin cloth in an act of defiance, Misto cleverly uses voice over and soundtrack to dramatically convey to the audience the brutal beating Bride endures to protect Sheila from the wrath of Lipstick Larry. We are told in the stage directions. These distinctly visual techniques clearly illuminate the horrors of war for the audience.
Perhaps the most poignant example of the horrors of war concerns Sheila’s sacrifrice for Bridie. From the outset of the play, Misto uses the dramatic technique of tension between the two characters to indicate there is something [between them which has been] unresolved. Tension is built throughout the first act through the

The tension builds until the climactic Scene 8, at the end of Ac tone, where Sheila reveals the horror she endured at the hands of the Japanese. Sheila gave herself to their captors in an effort to save Bridie’s life and this horror has stayed with her for the rest of her life “Every night, when I fall asleep, Lipstick Larry is waiting.” ---------------------------Sum up- Link to question and whats next. Therefore MIsto illustrates the horrors of war through a variety of techniques such as charcaterisation, stage directions, ----- however within the horror of Sheila’s situa tion another idea is revealed/ is shown/is brought to